Joe Handley

Don't really see electric P/S as any better or worse than Hydralic, just something different to fail instead of something new.

I swear the "-by-wire" stuff is there primarily to make consumers, insurers/safety advocates, and the politians they vote for/buy while in office happy. Only viable excuse I see in "-by-wire" tech is that plugging in a bunch of brand new electrical connectors made of plastic into each other is easier than running then connecting throttle and shift linkages.

Things like that are where I still prefer real linkages! I can trust electronics enough to control the fuel system and ignition and shifting gear to gear, but when it comes to throttle, brakes, shift levers, and even push button start, I'll take mechanical linkages any day!

I'm hoping that's a coincidence!

The 200 is registered to me (37) while the Jeep is also registered to Dad (72), both are registered to the same house, gets nearly all the same discounts (except the alarm and the nannies and such, the 200 is full of that junk while the Jeep only has 2 airbags), and both get driven in the many of the same areas as your Mustang, just much less now for the Jeep since I don't DD it all of the time any more.

Preachin' to the choir here Mark, I wish I knew why my '98 XJ Jeep Cherokee Limited with a 4.0l I-6 costs nearly as much for full coverage as my 2012 200 Touring with the Pentastar V-6 does, there's less that $100 difference between the two! Can't be hp/lbs, the 200 is slightly heavier but way more powerful and I think it would do just as much damage to the other vehicle in a wreck unless a pedestrain is involved. Could be handling and stability, but considering XJ's are freakishly stable and have surprisingly high handling limits for SUV's with two solid axles and 700lbs worth of I-6 sitting over the front axle, I'd hope that isn't the case, unless they base SUV safety and liability on the first 10 years of Explorer production, I don't know........

So far the only "Reality Car Show" I like to watch is Counting Cars.......actually, that's one of the few non news reality shows I'll try to watch! I wasn't truely impressed with the initial concept, but it did turn out to keep my attention. Already have a couple people on the show that I think need to be sent packing and as soon as I heard the hostess say that the one judge designed the Clooney Batmobile, I thought that alone should have disqualified him from being a judge.

That's cool!

Anybody watch this tonight? http://www.trutv.com/shows/motor-city-masters/index.html

I really should put a new radiator in my Jeep. When I had it out last tuesday for emissions and to get a plate sticker renewal, I could have used it's good working A/C.......it was 90°f and I'm still surprised it didn't puke antifreeze while waiting in line!

I never thought of this, only problem for me is that on days like today, I might fall asleep with an X-Acto knife in my hand and a model in my lap

Watched somebody in a Bently coupe (not sure what the name is, it just looked like bar of soap) blow a clearly red light while blasting into a construction zone......

Not to mention those with allergies, an old boss of mine and my sister is also friends with a former teacher if mine and the two of them go to IMS to a variety of races. This former boss has an allergy to a certain type of plant that grows in Indiana and if she is in her filterless car, it causes her allergy problems while riding in the former teacher's filtered car, she's fine.

Turns out the look on their faces is justified, it is a very What The......... Story.

What kind of doggie treats do they make?

I've slowed down too, but not so much because of higher prices as much as increasingly less income for the last few years and higher expenses. With the new ownership of my store and the improvement of sales, and therefore hours (ie, more income!!!), I have bought a few kits and have put a new R/C Truck on layaway, which is a first for a few years for me.

This, I beleive the headrest computers use an gyros or something to activate the active restraints in the case of a rear end collision, which is basically a fancy way to get the head rests to pop forward to catch your head in case if a rear end collision to reduce, if not prevent a case of whiplash.......now if something goes wrong and it activates without an impact to set it off, you might run the risk getting DiNozo'd by your own car, but hopefully you just did something to deserve it before that happens Now with the trans, these reflashes will allow the manufacturer to change the transmissions behavior and performance without pulling it out of the car and replacing or rebuilding it. Even though he knew it was only a software change, Dad swore it felt like my 200 has had a couple torque converter swaps and maybe a shift kit installed just from what these software updates did from the way it was when I bought it in April 2012. If you did this to any of the 100% mechanic Torqueflight based transmissions than came before this one, FWD or RWD, you would have to remove it and at least install a shift kit if not a new converter too to get the same change as this simple update that took an hour or so (including the trip to and from the dealer) out of my day off did! Now so far as the "drive by wire" nonsense, I agree fully, that, the stability control system, and the factory installed at T rated Eagle LS2 tires are the only real dislikes. I have found that those 3 do work against some of the more spirited driving manuvers I've tried and I do think the traction control sometimes makes the torque steer worse under hard accelleration too.

It's 5 years old, but this article should give some idea. http://m.autos.aol.com/article/japan-bias/

Why is that?

IIRC, those are being built in the same plant that the P.T. Cruiser was built in

Oh, for A new irk; People whe park their cars in the fire lane right on the ramp for handicap access! Saturday is wzs a woman waiting for her kids in a small crossover and today is was a father in an Audi A8 sedan....

That's what I've found with my 200, only time it's been wrenched on at the dealer was for oil changes and tire rotations, outside of that, it's had computer updates for the trans and a recall for the active head restraints, which also were just more software updates as well. A friend of mine had a 2008 Sebring with the 2.7l Flex Fuel motor and 4 speed trans that had 160k on it when he recently bought a '12 3.6l Charger, and the feel of that car was horrible, the interior plastics alone were so bad I was about to start looking for Racing Champions/RC2 copyrights molded into the door panels and dash!

Edwards may have also done some practicing on his own time too, games like Forza on the XBox do give you the chance to put a lot of hours of time on a track without having to go to the location to drive the real track

The '06 models we had/have were somewhat problematic, multiple A/C problems on the van, requiring that even the water pump be replaced a couple times, door lock issues on the right side power sliding door, surprisingly, the trans in that has been pretty solid, but I'm not sure if the van has hit 100k yet. The Charger har multiple suspension issues that it sounds like it inherited from it's Mercedes lineage that had been repaired once under the extened warranty and had returned prior to being traded for the Challenger and the 5 speed has acted up for a while now when cold to the point it concerned me when she took it into Chicago during the winter, plus she babysits her friend's 3 year old son from time to time and if this continued to be a problem, she didn't feel comfortable hauling him around in it. Atleast if these problems crop up on the Challenger, she has a severly reduced repair cost. Something else too is that the current Hemi and the Pentastar are both Variable Valve motors, with 4 adjuster on the cam pulleys for the Pentastar in the 200's pretty tight engine compartment and one buried under the timing cover on the Hemi, both of which will likely require a good bit of dissasembly to replace. Then when you get into.tje costs of such components as well as other stuff that can go wrong (like the power sunroof or power driver seat on the Challenger), a $100 copay for the repair would be cheaper that to pay a dealer for the fix, as well as possibly just the parts and doing some of it myself.

My Dad bought an extended warranty for his '06 Town and Country when he bought it, it was a couple thousand extra dollars, but he also ended up saving a few thousand over the cost of the warranty by the time all of the warranties ran out after 7 years, same as when my Sister bought her '06 Charger by the time her extended warranty ran out. Granted we don't know if the Fiat era Mopars are going to be as bad quality wise as those Daimler-Benz era cars had/have been (with any luck, the pretty much trouble free 26k miles in my 200 should be a good omen), but it would be some decent insurance to have a lifetime warranty (as in, foras long as we own the cars, and we keep cars for a long, long time) if the Italians are just as bad at making Mopars as the Germans were.